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Forums > All Catalyze > Design
Subject: Prototyping Tools and Pitfalls?
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shawne
Posts:2
01/30/2008 7:05 PM Alert 

Hello.  Last week I was asked to be on a team to analyze, evaluate, and recommend a prototyping tool for BA use.   I was wondering if anyone has gone through this process and has advice on things to look out for, or suggestions for tools to review.  Thank you.

S.
LMarine
Posts:28
01/31/2008 2:06 PM Alert 
The first thing you should do is make a list all of the tasks you must perform and deliverables you need to provide as a result of your BA processes. For instance:
1) Do you need to provide "clickable" mock-ups, etc.?
2) Do you need to provide a description of the behaviors so that the developers can make sure those behaviors occur in the product?
3) Do you need to track a design feature back to a prioritized requirement?

You get the idea...

Reply back with that and then we can offer some anecdotal experience that might help shed some light on your task.

I use a combination of tools, depending on the needs of my client.

Larry
shawne
Posts:2
01/31/2008 4:43 PM Alert 

Thanks for your help. I'm relatively new in this organization, but so far, we appear to use prototyping to illustrate potential solutions to clients, as well as provide visual aides for our development teams to support requirements. So, to answer your questions:
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Not sure on this one--I do not think so

Any insights would be appreciated. We're beginning to embark on this mission next Tuesday!
thumbarger
Posts:156
01/31/2008 5:20 PM Alert 

Shawn - have you searched the Catalyze community?  One simple way to do so is to use the tag cloud (at the bottom of the home page or in the left nav of other pages) to search for content that has been tagged with prototyping (28 items including blogs and resources).  You can also use the Search box in the upper right corner to look for prototyping resources to find content that may not have been tagged.

Here's the link to the Prototyping tag search.

There is a very good article that identifies the key prototyping tools that is posted in Catalyze.  The article originally appeared in Boxes and Arrows last year and was written by Scott McDowell.  The Catalyze link to the article is here.

Tom Humbarger, Community Manager
loislewis
Posts:6
01/31/2008 11:53 PM Alert 
Hi Shawn,
So I'm a big fan of Axure for prototyping. Don't have to really know code or a graphics program for it. I've also used plain ol html, photoshop and imagemaps, visio and even excel with embedded VB.

Hope this helps!

Lois Lewis
dayb
Posts:1
03/13/2008 3:41 AM Alert 
Hi there, we are a consulting company and have developed a prototyping tool Screen Architect www.screenarchitect.com The tool is a plug-in to the popular CASE tool Enterprise Architect www.sparxsystems.com and allows an analyst to prototype an application and have the screen elements automatically populate into the CASE tool repository as UML elements. This elements can be tagged with requirements, constriants of any other notes you want to add and then documentation can be automatically generated.
This is a world first in terms of integration and we believe that no other CASE tool prototyping solution can compete with the its value of this integration solution.

I hope this is useful.
Bryce
beginfel
Posts:3
05/01/2008 1:27 PM Alert 
Posted By thumbarger on 01/31/2008 5:20 PM

There is a very good article that identifies the key prototyping tools that is posted in Catalyze.  The article originally appeared in Boxes and Arrows last year and was written by Scott McDowell.  The Catalyze link to the article is here.

Hello, tried to click the link, obtained a very long list of articles instead of a direct link to it. Gave up.

Can you provide a direct link to the article please? Thanks, Felix

 
thumbarger
Posts:156
05/01/2008 1:45 PM Alert 

Link in Catalyze - you have to scroll down to the open file...

http://www.mycatalyze.org/Default.aspx?TabId=871&FolderId=183&FileId=1359

Or the link from Boxes and Arrows...

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/visio_replaceme